


A Game of Gods and Monsters

by beautifulterriblequeen



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Light Torture, alternate avengers timeline, scheming and fluff, tactical kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 19:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17514449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulterriblequeen/pseuds/beautifulterriblequeen
Summary: In Avengers 1, Nat realizes that Loki asked her a question aboard the helicarrier, and she never answered it. What would happen if she did? Where was Loki trying to take the conversation?





	A Game of Gods and Monsters

 

**A Game of Gods and Monsters**

 

“Nat, what are you _doing_?” Clint’s voice barked through the com in Black Widow’s ear over the whistling of the wind as she zipped toward him, clinging to the back of a Chitauri skiff pilot a thousand feet above the embattled streets of New York.

Nat gauged the distance between her Chitauri skiff and Loki’s, and again between the both of them and Clint’s vantage point—a skyscraper rooftop where Cap had stationed him to shoot down airborne enemies like Loki. But suddenly, Nat wasn’t nearly as sure that the God of Mischief qualified.

 _“And what are you now?”_ Loki’s voice, cool and calm though he sat imprisoned in a glass cage as if the interrogation was his to administer, echoed in her memory.

“I’m nuts, that’s what I am,” Nat muttered. She jerked on the daggers she’d driven into the pilot’s back and veered to intercept Clint’s oncoming arrow.

Loki, unconcerned, merely glanced toward Clint’s projectile with a cocky grin. But Nat recognized the explosive head on the arrow. If Clint blew Loki out of the sky, she’d lose her one and only chance to chase the rabbit she’d overlooked inside that glass cage. She thought she’d gotten what she wanted from Loki then. Now she worried he’d been trying to offer her something entirely different. Something vital.

 _Never ignore a gift from the enemy,_ Fury liked to say _. Maybe it’s a trap, maybe it’s a surrender. But it’s never nothing_.

She had to know.

“Nat!” Clint’s voice was a hair above his usual cool-cucumber tone, which, for him, was practically frantic. He detonated his arrowhead early to avoid killing her, giving away its true purpose just as Nat jinked her skiff so that its undercarriage faced the explosion, protecting both her and Loki.

The force of the blast blew her off the pilot’s back. New York’s skyline whirled in her vision as she struggled to orient herself in midair. A horizontal surface came into view—Stark Tower’s skywalk—and she tumbled across it. The skiff pilot wasn’t so lucky—he crashed into the 63rd floor. Before she could expend her momentum and skid to a stop, though, the narrow walkway ended, and her stomach lurched into her throat at the sight of her impending fate. She scrabbled for the edge of the walkway, but it slipped from her grasp.

Gravity began to have its way with her.

Then a firm hand clamped down on her right wrist, jerking her to a halt and straining the ligaments in her forearm. She dangled helplessly in her savior’s grasp. Slowing her breathing, she glanced down at the drop she’d just been saved from. “Well, that would’ve been messy.”

Loki hauled her up until their eyes were on the same level. He seemed entirely unscathed after being blown from the sky, though his black hair seemed a little windblown. Meanwhile, Nat’s ribs throbbed, and one of her knees felt like it had been hyperextended. He let her dangle before him for a long moment, while his unspoken question glinted in his canny blue eyes.

The lanky Asgardian in black and green leathers dropped her to the skywalk beside him, spun her around, and gripped the back of her neck. Forcing her to walk ahead of him, Loki strode into the observation deck of Stark Tower. He marched her in the direction of the wet bar and gave her a shove toward it.

“I think I will have the drink Stark offered me after all,” he commented lightly. He flicked his long fingers toward a set of upended glasses, and they rattled against each other.

Nat straightened her shoulders, walked around behind the bar, and turned over two of the highball glasses. Her fingers brushed against her suit for the barest moment. “What’s your poison?” she asked coolly.

Loki offered her a quick, confident laugh. “All poisons are my poison. A quirk of my Jotun origins: neither venom nor poison has any effect on me.”

Nat flicked a tiny packet of poison from her fingertips. “Tsk. Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

Loki turned his full, intense attention on her. “Were you, though? Trying?”

Nat just smiled in response and poured two glasses of Stark’s finest single malt whiskey. “I don’t know if you’re a single malt kind of guy, but I can tell you that this is Tony’s most expensive alcohol.” She braced her elbow on the bar between them and offered him a glass from her fingertips.

Loki approached cautiously. Instead of taking the proffered drink, he picked up the other one from the bar top and downed it in one go. He looked into the empty glass with mild approval, then curiously at Nat. “Why did you turn on Barton just now? Surely you can’t have wiped out all the red in your ledger already.”

Nat eyed him with ease. “Like I told you earlier, regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that.” Keeping her face neutral, she worked her ear com out and dropped it into the drink she still held in her fingertips. It fizzled and died, isolating her from any help she might need. Her eyes held his, wide and blue. “Do you?” She moved the glass just slightly toward him.

Loki hesitated. His eyes dropped to her glass and stayed there. His mouth moved as if he was about to speak, but he kept silent. _I was right_ , Nat thought. _And I might not live long enough to tell anyone._

Then he waved a dismissive hand at her drink. “I’m not the weeping sort.” He turned his back, shoulders stiff, head lowered. His green and black leather swung gently in the breeze that blew through the broken window where he’d hurled Tony.

Nat paced around the God of Mischief toward the front windows, glass in hand. Maybe Clint would spot her, read her play—

Loki flowed into motion and dragged her away from the windows, blocking her outside view with his rangy height. With a hand around her throat, he walked her backward toward the wide, low, comfy chairs Tony had put near the inset fireplace and planted her in one with ungentle force. She tried to set her whiskey glass on a lamp table, but it teetered and spilled across the plush carpet.

“I decide the tricks here,” he said breathlessly.

Nat’s hands encircled Loki’s wrist in an attempt to lessen the force he was using on her throat. “If I’m the one getting choked, why are you out of breath?” she rasped.

His hand snatched back as if she’d burned him, and he stood upright, towering over her. “Perhaps putting up with your endless stupidity is exhausting.”

Nat smiled in spite of the danger she was in. Loki’s words weren’t meant to wound; they were a test. A test on a subject in which she’d graduated top of the class. “I’ll try to be smarter, then.”

Loki’s laugh was bitter and brief. So many emotions flickered across his face that Nat had trouble tracking them all. Few things were as dangerous as a mix of desperation and power.

He stared out the broken window. “Then be smart and tell me why you came to me. What made you decide to turn on the Avengers?”

Nat sat up straighter in the chair. “Something you said on the helicarrier. It didn’t register at the time. I was too busy talking over you, trying to get what I wanted. But it stayed with me.”

Loki eased himself onto the arm of another chair a few feet away. He fixed her with a look of interest, a serpent deciding whether to strike. “And what were those immortal, life-altering words I said to you?”

“I’d just said that I used to be Russian. And you asked me, ‘And what are you now?’”

Loki let his head dip to the side, silently repeating his question with a brief raise of his eyebrow.

Into his silence, Nat spoke, her words spilling from her like scarlet silk. “I didn’t want to tell you the answer. I wanted to keep the conversation on my track, not yours. Then I started wondering where your track would’ve led.”

Loki’s gaze grew hot with focus. “Tell me, then. What _are_ you now, if not Russian?”

Nat looked down at her hands. “I’m no one. I’m nothing. I’m an assassin in the shadows.”

“No.” Loki leaned forward with a feral smile and said, “That’s not what you really think of yourself. Tell me.” It wasn’t a request.

Nat swallowed, locked her fingers together awkwardly, clenching them into a messy knot. “I’m a monster.”

Loki straightened, chin high at her discomfiture. “And do your friends know? Your precious Avengers? Barton has told me plenty. Does he know all of your bloody secrets?”

Nat shook her red curls. “Not all. Enough, though. The others… not as much.”

“They don’t know your darkness, then. But, you think I will accept you? Why? Because we’re so alike?” His crisp mockery shattered like a sugar wafer with the bite of his smile.

Nat waited a beat before replying. “No. Because you’re a tactical genius.”

Loki gave her a tolerant, assessing look, caught off guard by her sudden flattery. Then his voice dropped low into menace. “Will they miss you?”

Nat shifted on the smooth, comfortable leather of her chair, knowing it might be the last comfort she felt in a long while. “Yes.”

Loki leaned in, hands on her chair’s wide arms, trapping Nat where she sat. He smelled of sweat and exhilaration, of pain and relief and agony and hope. His smile was toothy, his eyes wide and focused. “Will they come for you?” he breathed.

He wanted her to say yes—it was etched in every plane of his face. He wanted to play. But was this the game she came for?

She was betting her life that it was. But more important than being right was gaining Loki’s trust—if such a thing was possible. He would smell a lie if she offered him one. “Yes. They will.”

An exhalation of acceptance escaped him, and her shoulders shivered in relief. “Good. Let them come. The journey will be much farther than they expect.” He straightened and pulled her to her feet with a grip on her upper arm. He looked down his nose at her, his expression unreadable. “I hope you have a strong stomach.”

Her vision edged with blue, and the skyline around them faded to nothing. Nat felt the floor lurch and fall away beneath her feet. Before she could even twitch, however, it returned.

Everything around her had changed, except for the broad white chair behind her. She stood in a clear-sided, empty cubic pod of alien design, one of hundreds stored on pallets within a massive storage bay.

 _No, wait._ “Nice trick, making me think we’ve teleported. But teleportation isn’t in your bag of tricks, Loki. You’re strictly an illusion guy.”

Loki seized Nat by her jaw, though whether to shut her up or just to off-balance her, she wasn’t sure. He tipped her back over the chair until she had to cling to his arm to avoid falling, and he leaned in over her with hot menace in his eyes.

_This guy really is a bag of cats._

“I’m not ‘strictly’ anything,” he hissed, “and you would do well to remember that.”

“Sure, boss. No problem.” The words slipped out before she could stop them—he had unbalanced her, after all—words she’d often used to subtly tell Fury that he was full of shit but that she’d play along anyway.

But Loki was not Nick Fury.

“You don’t think there’s a problem? I’ll give you a problem.” He spun around, dragging her on tiptoe toward the edge of the pod. Without ever letting go of her, Loki switched his grip to the back of her neck and wrapped his other arm around her waist, lifting her off the floor and forcing her to pitch head-first, supported only by his arms. She braced for the impact of being slammed against the glass—payback for her manipulation of him inside the Hulk cage—but instead, she passed right through it without sensation. _Huh. Force field_. Instantly, a strange negative pressure sucked at her skin and tickled her tongue and eyes.

 _Hard vacuum! How the hell—?_ She wriggled, trying to back up into the safety of the air bubble behind her, but Loki held her fast. She reached back with her feet, trying to find a weak spot or a knee joint to buckle, but Loki pinned her against his side and blocked her legs with one of his. She clawed at his hand as he held her like a naughty kitten, but his grip only tightened. She just wasn’t strong enough to do any damage to him, and they both knew it.

Nat’s lungs began to ache, and her chest tried to heave in fresh air. She kept her lips sealed, but she couldn’t stop the instinctive noises her throat made as it begged for oxygen. Mustering all her will, she forced herself to relax and wait—for death or Loki’s mercy, whichever came first. It didn’t matter either way. She wouldn’t die begging anyone for anything. Her eyes slid shut.

Loki shifted behind her, and his voice suddenly spoke in the void. “I see your stomach isn’t the only thing that’s strong,” he murmured. He stepped back through the barrier and dropped Nat to the pod’s floor like a used broom.

She sucked in the sweet coolness of the air, coughing and hacking. It took a minute for her body to feel like it wasn’t going to die of oxygen starvation, but eventually, she leaned on the big white chair, pressed herself upward, and sat in it. “I’ll assume that was a test,” she began in a hoarse voice. “And I’ll assume I passed it.”

“That’s bold of you,” Loki said. He stood right at the edge of the pod, seeming to suck up what little light there was, a shadow among shadows.

“If I’d failed, I don’t think you’d leave me around to complain. You don’t strike me as the tolerant sort.”

Loki tipped his head, considering her. “I tolerate what amuses me.”

Nat sat up straighter, feeling her strength slowly returning. “Oh, I amuse you? That’s fun. Did you come to Earth to conquer it, or just to play games?”

Loki lowered his head and looked over at her from beneath his dark brows. “Why not both? Conquest is just another game, after all.”

His body language was fairly shouting at her, but between her recent oxygen deprivation and his alien presence, she wasn’t sure she was reading any of it right. She hesitated, hoping for another clue as to how to proceed.

But Loki had other plans. He pounced on the chair. One knee came down between hers, preventing her from rising, and the slats of his leather tunic splayed across her lap. He braced himself on the chair-back with one hand, while the other once again grasped her jaw, forcing her head back across the top of the chair. He was so tall that he loomed over her like a fierce shadow, drinking what murky light she gave off. His smile was breathless, excited, on the brink of sparking into laughter, and his eyes fairly twinkled.

Nat began to speak against the grip he had on her jaw, but her eyes got distracted by his face, and all she said was, “Wow.”

Loki tipped her face to one side as if checking her expression for deceit. When his eyes returned to hers, demanding explanation, she said, “It’s just that I don’t spend a lot of time up close and personal with bad guys unless I’m killing them. I don’t often get a moment to appreciate them as individuals. They’re usually just targets. But you…” Her eyes dropped to study his features again.

He immediately hid all expression behind cool neutrality, which served her just as well. “What about me?” he prompted. His voice wasn’t menacing, merely curious.

Nat smiled broadly in spite of herself. She had a thing for monsters, after all. “You wanna play this game with me? I’ll play.”

Loki’s eyes twitched into a quick squint as he read her. She’d only intended to offer a paragraph, but he smiled as if he’d gotten a whole chapter.

 _I wonder which chapter he got_.

His mischievously menacing voice drew her focus back. “Then let’s play.”

He crashed into her with a forceful kiss from which she could not escape, with his hand still anchoring her face. She let him claim her mouth, mildly interested to see what he’d do with it. Though intense, his kiss was quick and without warmth, full of force instead of passion. As he pulled back, she pressed after him, finishing the kiss herself.

He stared down at her, assessing, and she lay peaceably beneath his hand. His eyes roamed her features, reading his effect on her, interpreting her reaction.

She smiled with one corner of her mouth. “Wait ‘til I tell all the girls I just got snogged by a god. They’ll be so jealous. Especially Tony. Pretty sure he’s got the hots for you.”

He let out a soft laugh. “A bold assumption that you’ll live that long.”

“Life’s more fun that way.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” He spoke as if he’d forgotten where they were, or that he was being spied on by whoever had sent him to Earth. Surely Loki hadn’t just gotten… careless? The smile that eased across his face seemed to confirm it, though. He opened his mouth as if to begin a charming anecdote. One that could get them both killed.

Nat grabbed his leather collar and pulled him down for another kiss.

“Mmf,” he protested.

But she held his collar firmly. “Ssh,” she whispered against his lips.

He ripped himself free of her grasp and stared down at her, reading her face as if it were the most fascinating book in the Nine Realms.

“Shut up and play,” she murmured. _Play for our lives. Play for your freedom. Play for Earth. Play._

Again, he read everything she was trying to tell him and more. Something in her face seemed to convince him she’d acted to save them both. “Maybe I will.” He shoved himself up off the white chair and loomed over her, chest heaving. A desperate smile played across his lips and sparked in his eyes. “Stay here. Or leave, if you like,” he added with a casual wave toward the vacuum outside her pod. With a whirl of leathers and black hair, he spun and strode away into the hard vacuum in the loading bay.

Nat shuddered at the sudden lack of the god’s presence. _That guy’s intense_. She leaned forward onto her knees and took a few deep breaths. _Good kisser, though_. Her eyes scanned the area outside her pod. _Where am I? If it’s not an illusion… Of course. The portal. Loki took us through. We must be on some kind of base ship for the Chitauri invasion. If I can disable it somehow… if I can get out of this pod…_

***

Outside the Chitauri ship’s loading bay, Loki pressed himself against the wall of the broad, dark-blue hallway. With the invasion underway, the ship was nearly empty. The tremors in his hands didn’t come from a fear of being spotted. _What am I doing? I had a plan. I should be sticking to it. But I’m starting to understand why Thor found Jane so fascinating. Midgardian women are delightfully clever. All those poncy fools, dancing about in their armor and stars, hurling trees and aircraft about, and it’s the ordinary mortal woman who sees me._

_No. She’s far from ordinary. She didn’t tell the others what she saw. She stepped into this deadly morass with me. Allfathers know why, but here she is, offering to be my ally._

Loki laughed under his shaky breath. _She’ll likely die for her efforts, but perhaps I can still extricate myself if I use her well._

“Why do you hesitate, Loki?” The Other tugged at Loki’s mind, drawing him into a vision of dark space and porous rock. Loki dressed his illusory self in his horny helmet, an immediate instinct after so many centuries. “Kill the mortal and return to your leadership of the invasion. Or have you gone soft? Perhaps you are not the leader we require. Perhaps… you never were.”

Loki schooled his features to calmness and control. “I am your best chance for success and you know it. Else, why bother sending me in the first place? The Avengers are more trouble than you anticipated—”

“—than _you_ anticipated—”

“—and I am altering my strategy accordingly,” Loki finished.

“How so?”

“The mortal woman,” Loki said, easing callous disdain into his tone, “she is one of the Avengers. One of the weakest. The others will come for her—or try to. They must decide between losing one of their own and losing the planet. And they are fools, unable to shoulder the burden of sacrifice when it is not their own to make. Especially when it comes to women. My taking her will distract them at the very least, and may give us the opportunity to destroy them entirely. Either way, Earth will be mine, and you can have your precious Tesseract.”

“As agreed.” The Other sounded both dismissive and insistent.

“Yes, as agreed. Why do you doubt me?” Loki forced a thread of indignation into his voice. “Did you not select me to lead precisely _because_ of my moral flexibility? Am I not your perfect weapon, your perfect leader?”

“No one is perfect, _Asgardian_.” The Other looked Loki full in the face.

Loki felt the sting of the Other’s taunt and shrugged it off. He was who he was, and no one else could ever be him or do what he did. He was unique. And so were his flaws. This four-thumbed fool would never understand him; he only sought to use him, as he was used, in turn, by Thanos. As the Black Widow would be used by Loki.

_It’s manipulations all the way down._

“I will need the power of the Tesseract in order to work on her,” Loki said, easing the Other into a calm and confident state with his smile. “She came to me—you heard what she said. She does not suffer from the burden of allegiance. She’s willing to turn against her allies for a place with the winning side. I understand that more deeply than you ever could—Thanos has made certain of it. I am the one she trusts. Aside from taking her from the midst of her old allies, what knowledge might we gain of them from her, the better to end this skirmish more quickly? It is all to our advantage to use her as hard as we must.”

The other paused as if receiving a silent message from Thanos himself. “Proceed quickly. The invasion continues apace. Fall behind its leading wave with this distraction of yours, and your reward will be far less than you have been promised.”

Loki’s eyes glittered amid hard features. “I need only minutes.”

The vision faded, and Loki let his illusory helmet depart with it. As the Other turned away, Loki reached for the underside of his tunic and pulled, ripping a slender leather strip loose. Trying not to think about it wadded in his palm, he strode back through the airlock and into the supply bay, where weaponry and tech waited in orderly rows for the eventual conquest of the planet his foolish brother held so dear.

The vacuum pricked at his skin, prompting unwelcome flashbacks of his fall from Asgard. He remembered that moment two ways, but he dared not look too closely at either. One offered flickers of betrayal and pain as Thor hurled him off into space with a string of mocking curses. The other was more subtly layered with hope, anger, and self-hatred. Had Thor tried to save him? Or to kill him? Loki couldn’t be sure. The scepter’s blue light constantly danced at the edges of his vision, coloring everything. Even the Widow. Was he seeing her clearly? Would she truly help him, or was he just opening himself up to another betrayal?

_Does it matter? Either she will help me, or she won’t. I can handle either option. And if I am entirely wrong, then at least this nightmare will be over._

_But I am Loki. And I am not wrong._

Loki seized the flicker around his mind and gave the tiniest of tugs on its tether to the Tesseract, bringing a drop of the relic’s power to hand. He stepped into the air-filled pod where the Widow waited.

She sat at an angle in the broad white chair, her hands on its arms, a twisted queen in a pristine chair. She perched as he had once done on Asgard’s throne as its rightful king. Did she mock him? Had Thor spun tales of him to her? Did the Avengers all laugh at him?

His lip curled, and he forgot everything he’d planned to do.

***

“What’s the matter?” Nat asked coolly. “Throne envy? It’s really just a chair. They all are. You wanna sit? I’ll trade spots with you.”

Towering over her once again, Loki bunched his jaw muscles and let out a long breath. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but he waited until he had Nat’s full attention. She turned her head to look him full in the face, and he smiled—not smugly, but in a kind of collusion.

_I sure hope we’re getting somewhere, or I’ve badly misjudged this guy. And that would suck._

“No throne you are empowered to give me will satisfy my wants.” Loki raised a hand and clenched it into a fist, and the inside of the pod went pitch black. Nat gasped through her nose, mostly to check that she still had air. Which she did. But Loki wasted no time, taking advantage of her momentary distraction. Sudden pops of green light burst one by one around the pod, and as she flinched, he seized her. He tied her ankles together, flipped her on her stomach across the arms of the chair, and wrapped something tight around her throat. Then he pulled, and her body bent upward into a circle, her feet nearly touching the back of her head.

Nat wheezed in pain and surprise. One hand explored the cord around her neck while the other held on to the chair for support. The cord felt like a twisted length of thin leather. _He’s making this up as he goes along. I can work with that._

He eased up just a little. “Tell me something Barton didn’t, and the pain will stop.”

“What?” she wheezed.

“Intelligence,” Loki clipped. “I assume you have some.” He drew the leather more tightly.

The word play stung more deeply due to his dismissive tone, and her back protested the sharp angle Loki forced it to hold. “Stark Tower,” she grunted. “Top floors.”

Loki let the leather cord ease. “What about them?”

Nat sucked in air, coughed. “Tony’s got all kinds of gadgets up there. Citybuster stuff. Your army gets too far, he’ll blow it all up.”

“New York City?”

“Mmhmm.” Her voice was high as she tried to sound casual.

“Hah. I highly doubt that.”

Nat gritted her teeth against the pull of the leather and tried to work a little space in between her ankle bones where they ground against each other. “You don’t know Tony. He’s as much a narcissist as you are. If he can’t have it, no one can.”

Loki abruptly eased the leather strap in the pitch blackness, until Nat draped across the chair arm. She curled into a ball over it to stretch out her back muscles.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. Nat found the touch oddly comforting. _What’s he up to now?_ She wished she could see his expression. Perhaps the blackness was to keep her from reading him so easily.

“Let’s begin again,” he said.

Slowly, inexorably, the leather pulled tight again, bending Nat into an O. She clawed at the leather around her neck, trying to get even one finger under its grip. Her other hand flailed wildly and found Loki’s leg. Frustrated, she gave it a hefty punch, but he only shifted it closer to her. His hand came down on her shoulder again. Not to strain her further, but to direct her to lean on him for support.

Nat gasped with understanding, which made her cough. _I’m an idiot. The darkness isn’t for me. It’s for his watcher._

Loki’s voice seemed to echo in the tiny, lightless pod. “Tell me something else. Something no one else knows. And the pain will stop.”

There was indeed pain, but he let her lean on his thigh to relieve some of the stress he was putting on her spine. _Would’ve been nice if he’d been able to ask me to play it up. But I got the message._

Nat writhed and grunted and moaned in pain, acting the part Loki had scripted for her, for it was the only way out of the trap she’d strutted right into. Whatever she told him, it had to sound good—not only for his watcher but for him as well.

_How do I impress a god?_

“Nngh, Banner. Banner,” she blurted.

Loki eased up. “What about that green fool?”

“Not Hulk. Banner. I… I love him. I adore him. I can’t tell anyone. No one would understand. If… if anyone comes for me, it’ll be him. And trust me, you don’t want him to come after you on my behalf. It won’t be pretty. Because then you will get the green fool. Or should I say, the green fool will get _you_.”

“Why?” Loki’s voice was taut in the blackness.

“Why to which part?”

“Why do you love him? Seems a terrible choice, really. And here I thought the women on your planet possessed a modicum of cleverness.”

Irritation surged through Nat, and she dug a thumb into what she hoped was a pressure point on Loki’s leg. He grunted with pained surprise, and she said, “You know, you’re a real piece of work, Loki. You think you’ll be a great leader of Earth? Well, you won’t. You can’t even tell one woman from another. We’re all different people, you know, just like on Asgard. How’d you like it if I went around assuming that you were exactly like Thor? If I got bitchy whenever you weren’t?”

Loki’s laugh was low, but it carried true amusement. “Perhaps you do deserve to sit on Odin’s throne, after all, seeing as how you think so alike. Answer my question. Why do you love the monster?”

Nat sagged with a sigh, and Loki’s leather cordage pulled painfully against her ankles and throat. She even pulled her hand off his thigh, letting everything hurt more. “You haven’t guessed?” she wheezed. “It’s because I’m a monster, too. I deserve Banner. I deserve the Hulk. My ledger is still dripping red. It always will be. I know what I am. I know what I deserve from life. And it’s just more monsters.”

Silently, Loki set her down and slid the leather from around her throat and ankles. Without effort, he picked her up and sat her in the comfy chair. Then he knelt before her and pressed a finger against her lips in the dark. Pressed hard, until she nodded against it.

He unwound the leather and pushed it into her hands as a wide strip. Then he pulled her hands around his head, indicating that she should tie the leather around his eyes like a blindfold. She did so, though she couldn’t keep up with his wild leaps of strategy.

He took her head in his hands, and his lips found hers in the dark, but he didn’t offer a kiss. Instead, he moved his lips silently against hers, and she read their movements. “Trust me.”

She smiled against his lips in reply. The pod winked away.

They landed in what looked like some kind of engine room. Since Tony’s white chair hadn’t made this particular journey with her, Nat fell back onto her butt, but Loki landed on his knees as he must have been a moment earlier. Nat studied him in detail as she got to her feet. He carried tension in his jaw, and his head was cocked to listen for sounds. The blindfold looked secure. His hair even looked rakishly tousled rather than disheveled.

The God of Mischief held out a hand. Silently, Nat grabbed it. Orienting himself to her, Loki stood. “Monsters aren’t all bad,” he murmured.

Nat picked up the thread of their conversation. Mindful that his watcher was supposed to be under the impression that Loki was still torturing her for information inside the blacked-out pod, she responded in kind. “We do have our moments. I’m sorry you feel you have to hurt me to get answers. Haven’t I proven yet that I’m on your side? You really don’t need to test me any more.”

Loki’s laugh was soft. “You don’t trust anyone any more than I do. Would you believe someone who said that to you?”

“Probably not.”

“There you have it, then. My life is a constant test. Of me, and of those around me.” Loki turned Nat around and put his hands on her shoulders. He nudged her to walk forward, but she wasn’t sure where he wanted her to lead him.

“With that kind of attitude,” she said, leading him quietly around large collections of metal pipes and control panels, “how can you tell if you’ve won?”

“Ah, that’s easy. I never win.”

Nat stopped short in surprise at his blatant admission. “Why do you try, then?”

Loki pressed her forward. “Because winning isn’t the point. I’ve got to do something with these millennia of existence. Might as well amuse myself, yes?”

“Millennia? How old are you?”

“Old enough to know when you’re stalling, Agent Romanoff. You say you want to play nicely. Let’s test that, shall we?”

Knowing she wasn’t the one who was stalling, Nat kept her smile to herself.

“Barton has escaped the reach of the Tesseract,” Loki continued. “I’m curious how you managed that. I assume it was you who freed him. Your red ledger and all.” He nudged her shoulders without direction, but Nat tensed, suddenly sure what she was looking for.

She led him down a wide catwalk that spanned a vast gap above a row of engines which spouted a hot blue exhaust that smelled like burnt strawberries. “If I tell you that, you might kill me,” she hedged. “Isn’t that what you’ve really wanted to know all along?”

Her eyes scanned left and right until she spotted a massive hydraulic lift down an adjoining catwalk. She headed that way.

Loki’s fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Nonsense. Rewards belong to the faithful. Prove your loyalty to me, and I will protect you. A single breath of deceit, however, and you will long for something as sweet as pain.” His voice went gravelly with menace.

A prickle of alarm shot up Nat’s spine. _That doesn’t sound like the same guy who just whispered “trust me.” Well, maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s the same warning he’s operating under._

_Monstrous minds think alike._

She led him to the hydraulic lift, a huge, open elevator meant for bearing engines the size of city buses. She identified an activation lever as well as a safety release on the wall next to it. “All right, I’ll tell you what worked on Barton.” Nat stopped and lifted Loki’s hands from her shoulders. She turned to face him and took a deep breath. “Just keep in mind that it might not work the same for everyone. If you want to prevent it, you might need to take some pretty extreme measures.”

“Tell me, then.” Loki’s jaw was tense again. He had to know this was one big risk piled atop another. He wasn’t wrong.

Nat glanced over her shoulder, eyeing the narrow gap at the edge of the catwalk, between the lift and the drop to the next level, a good twenty-five feet below. Blue fumes rose around them, obscuring them from any casual observation.

Nat took a deep breath and stood on tiptoe. Gingerly, she took his cool face in her hands. He lifted his chin a fraction, as if pulling away, but stopped. A quick smile flickered at one corner of his mouth. Against Loki’s lips, she silently whispered, “Trust me.”

His smile broadened in reply.

She shoved him backward off the catwalk and dived for the safety release.

Loki pinwheeled down to the level below, vanishing through the blue steam. His howl of surprise was cut short by the massive thud of the hydraulic lift landing on his head and torso. From her vantage point above, Nat thought she saw his legs twitch once.

The thought of abandoning him there flitted through her mind. But she didn’t know the Chitauri, and he did.

Swearing under her breath, she reattached the safety release and hauled up on the lever next to it. The hydraulic lift rose smoothly away from Loki’s unmoving form. Nat leaped down onto its roof, swung off the open far end and landed inside the hollow car, then immediately leaped down to the level below. She hurried to Loki’s side and found him lying face up, blindfold askew over closed eyes, one arm over his head. Blood oozed from his nose and mouth, and from one ear.

He looked like his skull had gotten cracked. _Cognitive recalibration, indeed_.

She pulled the leather blindfold free. Loki remained motionless, eyes shut. She’d killed her best way of the Chitauri ship. “Oh, God.”

“Yes, mortal?” Loki barely moved his lips, but his humor seemed to have resurrected, which could only mean that the scepter’s spell had indeed been broken.

Nat quirked her lips into a smile, knelt at his side, and folded her hands atop his chest. “Dear God of Mischief, I want a pony that’ll bite Stark in the ass, a floating swimming pool, and a way off this Chitauri attack ship. Amen.”

Loki rolled his eyes at her with a _Really?_ expression.

She smirked at him. “All better?”

Loki struggled to sit up and groaned. “Nothing a single malt won’t fix.” He began to wipe the blood from his face.

“I know just the wet bar.”

Loki’s bloody hand paused in midair. “No. I pranced around like a dancing bear for all the Avengers to see, and you’re the only one who even heard me, let alone believed me. I can’t waltz into Stark Tower like this. They’ll try to kill me.”

Nat stared into Loki’s pained eyes. “What makes you think I’ll let them?”

Loki managed a wet laugh that coughed up more blood. “I’ve enjoyed this. Truly. Forgive me if I don’t want to do it again, though. You’re a bit hard on my delicate constitution.”

Nat tipped her head and offered him a fond smile. “This from my personal torturer? What a wuss. Here I thought you were some kind of badass.”

Loki dabbed at his nose and examined the blood. “Not at all. I’m afraid you have me confused, yet again, with my brother.”

“Won’t he help clear your name?”

“No.” Loki looked at her swiftly, but he immediately put a hand to his head and winced. “Thor must never know. It’s safer for all of us.”

“Who’s ‘us’? The Avengers? Earth?”

Loki snorted at the very idea. “ _Asgard_.”

Nat blinked. “Wait, wait. You’re saying you still want Thor to rendition you back home as some kind of terrorist? Why?”

Loki explored his teeth with his tongue and spat a wad of blood onto the engine room floor. “The only way I can walk away from this is if I keep walking straight into an Asgardian cell. But if anyone knows why, they’ll be in danger. And I won’t endanger Asgard. Not even for my own freedom.”

Nat gave him a nod of respect. “Aren’t you heroic today? Maybe you should get knocked over the head more often.”

Loki shot a look of distaste at his fingers, slick with his own blood. “I’d really prefer not to.”

“Pity. I’d love to volunteer.”

Loki looked at her, more slowly this time. “Why?” His voice nearly cracked, betraying his pain and confusion.

Nat’s smile was fond. “You’re not so bad. Everyone deserves a second chance. I got mine. You should get yours. Clever guy like you. You’d know exactly what to do with it.”

Loki’s charming smile briefly returned. “That I would. But that’s a game for another day. And I’ll never get to play it if I’m still trapped in here when the portal closes.”

Nat got to her feet and offered him a hand. “You’re taking me with you.”

Loki’s blue eyes seemed more vulnerable now that he was himself again—although the head injury probably contributed. As he gazed up at her, Nat read the shadows of his plans as they flickered across his face. He was considering leaving her behind.

One corner of her mouth rose at the prospect of fighting Loki hand to hand. With his recent injury, she might even last a whole couple of minutes. And she’d make every second count.

Loki read her intent and offered her a tired smile. “Eh. Yes. Easier that way, I suppose.” He took her hand and hauled himself to his feet with effort. “And now my minder knows I’m off the leash. We need to act fast. Come on. The skiff bay’s this way.”

Loki dashed off without her, his long legs unencumbered by his cognitive recalibration. Nat struggled to keep up with his long strides. Five minutes later, he led her into a bay that used to hold all the attack skiffs, but was now mostly empty. Only a handful lay at berth. He tossed her a creepy looking gray mask, the kind the Chitauri had worn when they exited the portal into the skies above New York City.

“Put that on, or you’ll die before we reach Earth.”

She slid the cold, sticky thing over her face and breathed easier when it began filtering air for her. Loki stepped into the front of the skiff, and Nat hopped in the back, holding on tightly. If she fell off, she had a suspicion that he wouldn’t circle back for her.

The skiff shot out of the ship and veered toward the portal in the distance. Only as they pulled farther away did Nat get a sense of how large the Chitauri ship was. “We really should do something about that thing.”

“I’m sure Stark has various explosive options,” Loki said over his shoulder. “He does seem the type to blow things up so no one else can have them.”

Nat grinned.

The skiff shot through the portal blazing up from the top of Stark Tower. Various nearby skyscrapers were on fire. A couple of giant floating centipedes were still slamming their way around Manhattan. Thor’s lightning brought one of them down just as Nat looked over.

She whipped off her alien mask. “We need to get down fast, before they shoot us down,” she hollered over the wind.

“They can’t see us. I’ve veiled the skiff.”

“Doesn’t mean something won’t crash into us, though. We need to end this.”

Loki took a deep breath and let it out as a longsuffering sigh. He veered toward Stark Tower. As they flew past the topmost roof, he reached back and grabbed Nat by the arm.  “Meet me inside, after.” Before she could reply, he threw her off the skiff.

With a yelp, she tumbled to the gravel roof and skidded to a stop. Having fallen from the sky onto Stark Tower twice in the same hour, her body was really starting to complain. She glared after him as he veered out of sight around the tower. “That really wasn’t necessary.”

She and Dr. Selvig collapsed the portal using Loki’s scepter. Selvig was amazed that Loki had left it behind, but Nat knew better now. Stark redirected some trigger-happy council nuke, just as Loki had expected, and blew up the Chitauri ship. She watched him fall, watched the big guy catch him. Then she dashed for the stairs down to the observation deck, scepter in hand.

Loki waited for her next to the wet bar, a glass of single malt in his hand. “Ah, the Least Annoying Avenger,” he murmured. “Is it done?”

“It is. They’ll be here soon.” She stood awkwardly before him, scepter forgotten in one hand. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

His smile was dazzling. “I’m not.” He offered her his other hand, and a green flash revealed that he’d been holding a second glass all along.

She smiled softly and took the drink he’d intended for himself, then clinked it against the one he’d just revealed. “Just in case you’ve made alternate plans in the last five minutes. Only one of us is immune to poison, after all.”

Loki tossed back his drink. “I like you, Romanoff. If we ever meet again, I might even try not to kill you.”

Nat’s smile broadened into full enjoyment. “Same.”

Loki laughed and set the highball glass down. “All right. Best do it quickly.”

Nat drank the whiskey, set the glass down, and raised the scepter.

“Just one quick request, though.” Loki raised a finger. “Don’t aim for my head. It’s had a day.”

“Deal.”

“And, while I have you,” Loki began, ambling toward her as if without purpose. “Tell me. Why did you never ask?”

The scepter lowered. “Ask what?”

“What happened to me. Why I’m here.”

She shook her head. “You said it was dangerous to know that.”

He looked down with a self-deprecating smile, no doubt chosen especially for her. “Ah. Of course. Silly of me.”

“What?”

“Thinking you Midgardian women are all alike. That you’d care enough to ask.” He dazzled her with a brilliant, charming smile that hinted at loneliness and a desire for more of her companionship.

 _Wow, he’s good._ “I can’t care if I’m dead, Loki.”

He paused mid-smile and blinked. “Agent Romanoff, surely you’re not confessing that you _actually_ like me.” His smile held, but tentatively, ready to flee from its own mocking echoes.

Her smile wasn’t uncertain in the least. “Of course I like you, Loki. You’re a monster.” She stood on tiptoe, grabbed his leather collar, and gave him a firm, warm kiss.

As she stepped back, Loki gazed down at her, unguarded, confused, trying to read her.

Nat brought up the scepter and shot him in the chest. The blue blast threw him across the room. His last expression was wide-eyed shock. He skidded up against a small set of stairs, unmoving. Nat smiled fondly. “Just like me.”

The other Avengers pounded into the room via stairs or zipped in through the broken window and clustered around her.

“You all right?” Tony pointed his right-hand repulsor toward the unmoving God of Mischief.

“Not a scratch,” Nat lied.

“What were you thinking with that stunt earlier?” Clint demanded. “I could’ve killed you.”

“Well, we established _that_ fact back in Budapest. But you still haven’t made good on your threat. Really. I’m fine. And look, I caught the bad guy. Can a girl get some props around here?”

“Yes, well done,” Thor immediately said. He strode over to give Loki a nudge with his boot.

Clint stepped close and looked Nat right in the eyes, studying her. She put on a calm smile for him, but he wasn’t entirely fooled. “Something’s up with you. I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.”

“Bold of you to think so,” she replied.

Thor turned and gave her all his attention. “You sound like my brother. Is there something you two discussed that we should know of?”

Nat met the God of Thunder’s bright blue eyes and answered honestly. “Nope. Haul his lanky ass back to Asgard and lock him away. It’s safer for everyone that way.”

Hulk made fists in the background and muttered under his breath. “Smash.”

Moments later, Loki stirred and pulled himself into a sitting position against the stairs. With a pained gasp, he turned and took in his less-than-adoring audience. Ignoring Nat completely, though she held his scepter, he focused on Tony. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now.”

The next day, Thor was ready to take Loki back to Asgard, using the power of the Tesseract. Nat stood with Clint and the other Avengers to see them off in Central Park.

While Banner and Stark assembled the Tesseract cylinder, Clint muttered, “I still think something went on with you two. Did he try to recruit you? Seduce you? Both? Neither? Did you try to recruit him? Did it work? Is he secretly a SHIELD agent now? Are you an Agent of Mischief?”

Nat leaned toward him and murmured, “You’re adorable, you know that?”

Clint smiled coldly at Loki. “I’ll figure it out.”

Loki offered Clint an unreadable stare.

Nat shook her head. “Nothing to figure out.”

Thor offered Loki the other end of the Tesseract cylinder. Loki’s eyes flickered to Nat, and a vision blossomed in her mind. Loki, unbound and healed, standing before her, the two of them alone in the park.

“Farewell, Agent Romanoff. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Bye. Guess I won’t see you again, will I?”

Loki’s grin was broad and confident, and a soft laugh escaped his lips.

Reality returned, and Nat saw Loki’s gaze shift back to Thor. With a twist and a flare of hungry blue light, the brothers were borne away by a blast of dark energy.

***

Two years later, Nat returned to her quarters in Stark Tower from a SHIELD mission in South Africa and found a package waiting for her on the country-garden welcome mat Pepper had given her for Christmas. She glanced around the hallway but saw no one. The package hadn’t been franked, it was hand delivered. Tony, probably. Or Clint. Though she didn’t recognize the oddly medieval handwriting.

She scooped it up and brought it into her quarters along with her rolling suitcase. Inside the box lay a small canister that sloshed with liquid. A card bearing the same unfamiliar handwriting read, _Open on the roof. Unless Barton is standing next to you._

Tony, then? She mostly trusted him not to blow things up unless it was on purpose, so she abandoned her unpacking and took the elevator up to the roof, canister in hand. With New York bustling below her in all directions and a hot summer sun beating down, she unscrewed the canister’s silver lid. A whole lot more water than should’ve fit in the canister flowed up and out—and hovered in midair, forming a watery disc six feet thick and twenty feet across. Nat breathed in its clean scent and felt her shoulders relax.

She had dropped the note in surprise, and when she glanced down, she saw a different message on the other side.

_Best not to visit Stark until he’s figured out how to cage the bilgesnipe. It’s been trained to bite him on the ass, as requested._

_Your most humble God of Mischief_

Nat stared at the note and barked a disbelieving laugh. _Humble, my ass_. “Well, gosh. Guess I better break out my swimsuit.” She headed back down to her quarters.

As the elevator doors opened, she heard Tony shouting. “ _Security breach!_  JARVIS, what’s the biggest taser I have? And is _all_ of that smell coming from that thing? Why does it keep running around behind me? What the _hell_ is happening right now? Nat! Nat, go get your zappy gauntlets and give this thing a love tap, will you? Nat!”

Nat gave Tony an _I can’t hear you_ gesture. “You’re doing great, Tony,” she called over the bilgesnipe’s gargantuan thumping.

Tony froze in imperious bafflement. “Wh— Nat! I said get over here and help me. Where are you— _Ow, holy shit_! JARVIS, I’m gonna need the strongest antibiotics we’ve got. And some dissolving stitches. The nanotech’s still in development, and Pepper can _never_ know about this.”

As Nat headed away from the chaos, JARVIS answered, “Yes, sir. I’ve already informed your in-house medical team.”

Outside her door, Nat glanced up, wondering if, somehow, Loki could see her. Just in case he could, she blew him a kiss.

 ***

Worlds away, Loki—disguised as Odin—stood by Heimdall’s side and gazed out at the stars.

“She has opened the canister, my King,” Heimdall said, watching Nat from afar. “Ha, she is pleased, and she offers Loki her, ah, her thanks.”

“Excellent. As she should. We do the same, building a theater in his honor. All the best of Loki’s stories deserve to be heard.”

“Are you sure it was wise to send a bilgesnipe to Stark Tower, my King? There could be repercussions.”

Loki stifled a smile. “I consider it an exchange of knowledge in the field of biology. It will do Stark good to be taken down a peg or two, as well. The mortals of Midgard are not gods, after all. Besides, it was what Loki wanted. Since he showed his true nature in sacrificing himself for Thor on Svartalfheim, I believe that I have misjudged him. And I wished to fulfill this request of his, however trivial, however…” Loki broke off as his lips twitched in amusement.

Heimdall’s broad lips smiled. “Hilarious, my King?”

Loki grinned. “Yes. It was indeed hilarious.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm ace, so this is what happens when I write fanfic. Tactical kissing and flaw acknowledgement. Yay, group hug!


End file.
